DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0469
COUNT SZECHENYI.
451
recover. Under so heavy an affliction one would have
thought the unfortunate patriot would be only an object
of pity even to his enemies: but the Austrians could
not believe themselves safe while the blood still beat in
so noble and true a heart. About two months before
we arrived in Hungary a couple of Austrian police
officers visited the Count in his seclusion — overhauled
his books and papers ■— for he could still amuse him-
self with reading — and on quitting the apartment, left,
with careful carelessness, a pair of loaded pistols on his
table;—-the plan succeeded — he had probably been
excited with conversation, and, before that day's sun
had set, Count Szechenyi had breathed his last!
The torrent of grief and indignation that overspread
Hungary was a thousand-fold more inimical to Austria
than even Szechenyi's restoration to health could have
been -— for he was a reformer, not a revolutionist, — it
was all the worse that the people were half compelled
to conceal it, as the Paternal Government of course
denied her own work: their patriotism, now watered
with tears, found some slight expression in the eager-
ness with which, from the melancholy day of his funeral,
the whole country, the Pesthians in particular, seized
upon their ancient costume as an ensign of brother-
hood : it was but little — for enslaved * Hungary is but
impotent, as yet, but it was something. Eich and poor,
noble and peasant, blossomed out in the pretty dress,
and became externally as entirely Hungarian as they
were at heart: with their soft, rich language and their
peculiar, picturesque dress, not even a stranger could
confound them with the Germans: but another thing
* It will be remembered that this was written in August, 1861.
G G 2
451
recover. Under so heavy an affliction one would have
thought the unfortunate patriot would be only an object
of pity even to his enemies: but the Austrians could
not believe themselves safe while the blood still beat in
so noble and true a heart. About two months before
we arrived in Hungary a couple of Austrian police
officers visited the Count in his seclusion — overhauled
his books and papers ■— for he could still amuse him-
self with reading — and on quitting the apartment, left,
with careful carelessness, a pair of loaded pistols on his
table;—-the plan succeeded — he had probably been
excited with conversation, and, before that day's sun
had set, Count Szechenyi had breathed his last!
The torrent of grief and indignation that overspread
Hungary was a thousand-fold more inimical to Austria
than even Szechenyi's restoration to health could have
been -— for he was a reformer, not a revolutionist, — it
was all the worse that the people were half compelled
to conceal it, as the Paternal Government of course
denied her own work: their patriotism, now watered
with tears, found some slight expression in the eager-
ness with which, from the melancholy day of his funeral,
the whole country, the Pesthians in particular, seized
upon their ancient costume as an ensign of brother-
hood : it was but little — for enslaved * Hungary is but
impotent, as yet, but it was something. Eich and poor,
noble and peasant, blossomed out in the pretty dress,
and became externally as entirely Hungarian as they
were at heart: with their soft, rich language and their
peculiar, picturesque dress, not even a stranger could
confound them with the Germans: but another thing
* It will be remembered that this was written in August, 1861.
G G 2